10th Anniversary Part 2

After my fruitless Internet crawl, I went back to the ICU and slept in the big vinyl-covered reclining chair beside Avis's bed. I woke up when she was wheeled out of the ICU and down the hall to a private room.

I called Brady, told him that we were still nowhere, my voice sounding defensive to my own ears.

"Anything on the baby?"

"Brady, this girl hasn't said boo."

When I hung up with Brady, my phone buzzed with an incoming call from Conklin.

"Talk to me," I said.

"The hounds found her trail."

I was instantly hopeful. I gripped my little phone, almost strangling it to death.

"She bled for about a mile," Conklin told me. "She put down a circular path at the southernmost part of Lake Merced."

"That sounds like she was looking for help. Desperately looking."

"The hounds are still on it, Lindsay, but the searchable area is expanding. They're working a grid on the golf course now. The gun club area is next. This could take years."

"I haven't found anything in missing persons," I said.

"Me, neither. I'm in the car, calling people with the name Richardson in San Francisco. There are over four hundred listings."

"I'll help with that. You start at A. Richardson. I'll start at Z. Richardson, and we'll work toward the middle," I said. "I'll meet you at the letter M."

When I hung up with Richie, Avis opened her pretty, green eyes. She focused them on me.

"Hey," I said. "How are you feeling?"

I had a white-knuckle grip on the rails of her bed.

"Where am I?" the girl asked me. "What happened to me?"

I bit back the words "Ah, s.h.i.t" and told Avis Richardson what little I knew.

"We're trying to find your baby," I said.

Chapter 5.

I PUT MY KEY in the lock of the front door to our apartment, and at that precise moment, I remembered that I hadn't called Joe to say I wouldn't be home for dinner. Actually, I hadn't spoken to him in about twelve hours.

Way to go, Lindsay. Brilliant.

My border collie, Martha, heard me at the front door, barked, and, with toenails clattering across the wooden floor, hurled herself at my chest.

I cooed to her, ruffled her ears, and then found Joe in the living room. He was sitting in an armchair, reading light on, with eight different newspapers lying on the floor around the chair in sections.

He looked at me with reproach in his eyes.

"Your mailbox is full."

"My mailbox?"

"Your phone."

"Is it? I'm sorry, Joe. I had to turn my phone off. I was in the hospital ICU all day. A new case I'm working."

"We were supposed to take my folks out for dinner tonight."

"Oh my G.o.d. I'm sorry," I said as my stomach dropped toward my toes. Joe had told me that we were going to take them out for some quality time and first-cla.s.s steak at Harris'. I'd filed that information in a folder at the back of my mind and never looked back.

"They're on the flight back to New York."

"Honey, I'll call them tomorrow and apologize. I feel like c.r.a.p. They're so great to me."

"They're treating us to a honeymoon. A little luxury shack in Hawaii. When we've got time."

"Ah, s.h.i.t. Is that what they said? That makes me feel even more rotten. There's a baby missing ..."

"Have you eaten?" he asked.

"Just vending machine stuff. A long time ago."

Joe got out of the chair and strolled to the kitchen. I followed him like a puppy that had had an accident on the rug. Taking a chicken breast out of a bowl of marinade, he put a pan on the stove and fired it up.

"I can do that," I said.

"Tell me about your case."

I poured myself a giant gla.s.s of merlot and left the bottle on the counter. Then I dragged up a stool and watched Joe cook. It was one of my favorite things to do.

I told him that a teenage girl had been found in the street like roadkill, bleeding out from a recent pregnancy and delivery. That she'd almost died from loss of blood. That she was still barely lucid, so I had spent the past twelve hours running through missing persons files in every state in the union, waiting for her to talk.

"All we know is that her name is Avis Richardson," I said to Joe. "Conklin and I have called about two hundred Richardsons in the Bay Area. So far no luck. Wouldn't you think her parents - or someone - would have reported her missing?"

"You think she was abducted? Maybe she's not local."

"Good point," I said. "But still, no hits in VICAP." I worked on my b.u.t.ter-sauteed chicken. Slurped some wine. I was kind of hoping that between the sustenance and Joe's FBI-trained mind, some insight would come to me.

There was a newborn out there somewhere. He might be dying or dead, or in transit to another country. Dr. Rifkin said the gap in Avis Richardson's memory had to do with whatever medication she had taken and that she didn't know what kind it was or how long ago she had taken it. There was a chance Avis might never never remember more than what she'd already told us. Particularly if she'd been knocked out during the trauma. remember more than what she'd already told us. Particularly if she'd been knocked out during the trauma.

I was hoping that her body had a memory of giving birth and that she was emotionally aware of her terrible loss. That maybe that physical memory would trigger an actual one and she'd remember something critical if we gave her enough time.

"Joe, despite all that has happened to her recently, why can't she tell us how to reach her parents? Is she unable? Or unwilling?"

Joe said, "Maybe she was living on the street."

"She was found just about naked. Wearing a two-dollar rain poncho. You could be right."

Joe took away my empty plate, loaded the dishwasher according to a system of his own devising, and gave me a bowl of praline ice cream and a spoon. I got up from my stool and wrapped my arms around his neck.

"I don't deserve you," I said. "But I sure do love you to death."

He kissed me and said, "Did you try Facebook?"

"Facebook?"

"See if Avis has a page. And then here's an idea. Come to bed."

Chapter 6.

"I'LL JOIN YOU IN A BIT," I said to Joe's back as he walked down the hall to our bedroom.

I took my laptop to the sofa and reclined with my head against the armrest, Martha lying across my feet.

I opened a Facebook account and did a search for Avis Richardson. After some fancy finger navigation, I found her home page, which wasn't privacy protected. I read the messages on her wall, mostly innocuous shout-outs and references to parties, all of which meant nothing to me. But I did learn that Avis attended Brighton Academy, a pricey boarding school near the Presidio.

I called Conklin at around midnight to tell him that we had to track down the head of Brighton, but I got his voice mail. I left a message saying, "Call me anytime. I'm up." I made coffee and then accessed Brighton's website.

The site was designed to attract kids and their parents to the school and, if you could believe the hype and the photos, Brighton Academy was a little bit of heaven. The kids - all of them good-looking and well groomed - were shown studying, onstage in the auditorium, or on the soccer field. Avis was in a couple of those photos. I saw a happy kid who was nothing like the young woman lying in a hospital bed.

I recognized other kids, ones I'd seen on Avis's Facebook page.

I made a list of their names.

And then I heard a baby crying.

When I opened my eyes, I was still on the sofa, my laptop closed, with Martha on the floor beside me. She was whining in her dreams.

The digital clock on the DVR showed a couple of minutes before seven in the morning. I had a terrible realization. This was only my second night in our apartment as a married woman, and it was the first time, ever, that I'd slept in the same house as Joe but not in the same bed.

I poured out some kibble for Martha, then peeked into the bedroom where Joe was sleeping. I called his name and touched his face, but he rolled over and went deeper into sleep. I showered and dressed quietly and then walked Martha up and down Lake Street, thinking about Joe and our marriage vows and about what it meant to be part of this team of two.

I would have to be more considerate.

I had to remember that I wasn't single anymore.

A moment later, my mind boomeranged back to Avis Richardson and her missing baby.

That child. That child. Where was that baby?

Was he lying in the cold gra.s.s? Or had he been stuffed in a suitcase and into the cargo hold of a ship?

I called Conklin's cell at 7:30, and this time I got him.

"Avis Richardson goes to Brighton Academy. That's one of those boarding schools where parents who live out of state park their kids."

"It might explain why no one is looking for her," Conklin said. "I was just talking with K-9. The hounds are going in circles. If Avis was transported from point A to point B by car, that would have broken the circular trail."

"c.r.a.p," I said. "So, she could have delivered the baby anywhere and then been dumped by the lake. No way to know where point A was."

"That's what I'm thinking," he said.

"I'll meet you at the hospital in fifteen minutes," I said. "Avis Richardson's memory is all we've got."

When we got to Avis Richardson's hospital room, it was empty, and so was her bed.

"What's this now? Did she die? die?" I asked my partner, my voice colored by unadulterated exasperation.

The nurse came in behind me on crepe-soled shoes. She was a tiny thing with very muscular arms and wild gray hair. I recognized her from the night before.

"It's not my fault, Sergeant. I checked on Ms. Richardson, then went down the hall for a quarter of a minute," said the nurse. "This girl of yours scampered when my back was turned. Appears she took some clothing from Mrs. Klein in the room next door. And then she must've just walked the h.e.l.l out of here."

Chapter 7.

AT 8:30 THAT MORNING, Yuki Castellano was sitting at the oak table in a small conference room in the DA's Office on the eighth floor of the Hall.

Predictably, she was anxious.

Right now, she was running a low-grade anxiety that would heat up as it got closer to the actual start of the trial.

Today was a big day. And a lot was at stake.

She'd put in a year of work on this case, and it was all going to happen in less than half an hour. Court would convene. Dr. Candace Martin would go on trial for murder in the first degree, and Yuki was the prosecuting attorney.

Yuki knew every angle of this case, every witness, every crumb of physical and circ.u.mstantial evidence.

The defendant was guilty, and Yuki needed to convict her, for the sake of her reputation in the office and for her belief in herself.